


A Vulpix Named Flashlight

by Roseeater (eki_fuuten)



Series: What Eevees Saw [3]
Category: Pokemon GO, pokemon: and the world will turn to ash - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-13 12:39:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9123958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eki_fuuten/pseuds/Roseeater
Summary: (For 'And The World Will Turn to Ash' fanon by Surfacage http://www.surfacage.net/ )In which we learn Amelie obtained her vulpix with a Team Rocket method for a Team Instinct reason, Amelie learns there is more to Spark than meets the eye, Spark learns Amelie's weakness and Noire doesn't really learn anything.Also featured:DelinquentsBeing Amelie is sufferingSpark knows everything, what the hellNoire is a brat who needs a hug---This story is a sequel to 'Force of Nature'; it's not necessary but recommended to read the previous story before this one.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kheradihr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kheradihr/gifts), [surfacage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/surfacage/gifts).



Amelie patted the restless vulpix on her arm. He was long used to the bulletproof vest and going on missions but this was a stealth operation which meant lots of idle waiting in silence.

'You know Amelie, there is something I've been meaning to ask you ever since we've met.'

OK, make that _relative_ silence. Amelie sighed; at least their superior was doing their best to keep their voice down.

'What is it, Noire?'

'Why is your vulpix called Flashlight? It doesn't fit your naming convention. If anything it fits…' Noire scowled, most probably at the thought of the bright-haired Instinct leader. Amelie leaned on the wall, taking care not to accidentally throw Flashlight off her shoulder; the lab was supposed to be empty at this hour but someone still lingered in one of the rooms, which meant they were meant to wait for an undetermined length of time.

'He already had a name when I got him.'

'Where did you get him?'

Amelie gave Noire a long stare. Asking a Rocket member that kind of question could be anything from a recommendation request to a threat, but Noire was genuinely curious and visibly bored. Noire wasn't made for stealth missions yet executive Sabrina still kept making Noire participate in them. Amelie wasn't sure if it was to torment Noire or her.

'There used to be a small lab near Instinct Reserve. It got closed as the GO program gained traction and they moved to a bigger facility.'

 

 ***

 The corridor was dark and narrow, the only light coming in from the street through the windows and from under the doors leading to labs. Amelie poked Mike's shoulder and indicated the third door on the left.

'It's that one. The light is dim so I think no one is inside.' Amelie whispered.

Mike looked with longing at another door.

'I'd love to get that pikachu…'

'We are not stealing _any_ pokemon that are in treatment,' Amelie hissed. 'They need specialists to take care of them.'

'I can take care of a sick pokemon.'

'You are _ten_!' said Amelie who was also ten but often felt so much older than her classmate. 'You don't have the knowledge! We're going to the room where they keep pokemon that are already fine!'

Mike pouted, but knew there was no arguing with Amelie when she got like this.

They tiptoed through the corridor, slowly sneaked into the room and carefully closed the door. Only then Amelie turned on her flashlight.

The room felt different than what they remembered from their class trip. It was full of cages and crates, labeled with the names, details and destination of pokemon inside them but, dark and filled with calm breaths of sleeping pokemon, it was both more eerie and more peaceful. Amelie kept the light to the floor not to wake any of the animals - she knew the cage she was interested in was at the end of the row.

'Flashlight!' she whispered looking at the label.

'What? You already have one!' Mike was on the other side of the room greeting the growlithe that he seemed to mutually fall in love with during the school trip. The growlithe, who had a huge scar on his muzzle, was genuinely delighted to see Mike again.

'No, it's his name. Who the hell calls a vulpix _Flashlight_?'

'Wait, you came for that vulpix?' Mike's whisper got closer, along with the patter of growlithe's feet. 'Why? It's small, it's weak. We were told it had to be treated for half a year, ever since it was a baby.'

Amelie carefully put her hand into the cage. The tiny vulpix, who woke up when she got close to the cage, looked at her face, sniffed her hand and hesitantly rubbed his head on it.

'He had to be taken from his family and now he can't go back to them because they were all murdered. He needs someone who would take care of him.'

With the corner of her eye Amelie could see a look of distaste on Mike's barely lit face.

'Amelie, we're aiming to join team Rocket and you sound like you should join that new Instinct team from GO project. You should steal the _strongest_ pokemon from here.'

'You're not going to tell me what to do.' The vulpix accepted Amelie and let her take him out of the cage. He was indeed very small for his age and felt weak and vulnerable in her hands. It's OK, she thought, I'll help you get stronger.

'Your choice, but you will regret taking care of something out of pity.' 

***

 

'What the hell are you doing here, asshole?' Noire snarled at Spark who appeared in the scarcely lit corridor following Donglord. Donglord cheerfully ran up to Noire and jumped at them to scratch their face. Amelie sighed. She made such precise plans, drawing out schedules of everyone working in the lab and choosing the completely unused corridor as a hiding place. She should have predicted that even though the lab was not affiliated with any of the teams one of the leaders was bound to show up when they came. Especially one of the two that had eeveelutions bound to react to Noire's scent.

'I was asked for consultation about an unusual egg. It's pretty fascinating, you know…'

'I don't care,' Noire tried to reach for their pokeballs, which was not that easy when you tried to protect your face from a fiery joltreon's paws. 'Oh for fuck's sake, get him off me…'

'Donglord, I told you many times, don't play with trash…' Sparks eyes fell on Amelie and his face lit up. 'Hey, can it be… is that Flashlight?'

Amelie stared; she was pretty sure this was the first time Instinct leader saw her vulpix. Noire looked from Flashlight to Spark.

'OK, what the fuck Spark, do you just happen to know everyone's pokemon?'

'Just the ones I took care of.' Spark squatted and slapped his knees. 'Come here little buddy!'

To Amelie's horror Flashlight jumped off her arm, ran to the grinning Instinct leader, put his paws on Spark's knees and licked his gloved hand. 'Man, you grew up healthy! We weren't sure you'd survive when we found you.'

Donglord came up to Flashlight and the pokemon greeted each other. It was undeniable they've met before.

'Who did you get him from, Amelie?' Spark scratched Flashlight under his chin, the way Amelie knew Flashlight loved. 'I always wondered who would steal such a small, weak pokemon.'

Amelie sighed again.

'I did.'

'What the fuck, Amelie,' Noire looked indignant. 'You're Team Rocket, you're supposed to steal _strong…'_

'I know that,' Noire echoing Mike's words annoyed Amelie. 'I was a _child_. He had just lost his whole family!'

This made Noire shut up.

'So' Spark looked from Noire, who was slightly pale and eyeing Flashlight with a weirdly concerned look, to Amelie. 'You're the type to decide to take care of something if you feel sorry for it and think no one else would?'

Amelie held Spark's stare. Spark didn't even look at Flashlight; he glanced for a moment at Noire before looking back at Amelie.

For someone who acted so dumb Spark could be infuriatingly sharp.

'Maybe.' Amelie tried really hard to look indifferent.

Spark grinned so wide Amelie could see all his teeth, patted Flashlight for the last time and got up.

'So how about you guys scram and I will let you off today? As a reward for taking such a good care of Flashlight.'

'Let us off?' Noire perked up but there was still something subdued about them. 'Listen you ass…'

'That wasn't a question, dipshit,' Spark's eyes flashed gold and static jumped between him and Donglord's fur. Noire flinched.

'Let's go boss,' Amelie grabbed one of Noire's pigtails and turned to leave.

'Ouch, what the fuck Amelie...'

'We are not getting you hospitalised again; we have schedule full for the next two weeks.' This was going to take some creative report-writing later but Amelie wanted to be out of there. Among other things, she really wanted to be away from Spark's knowing look.

'Oh, right' Spark caught up with them and pushed a big paper bag into Amelie's hands. 'Sorry, half of the bag is eaten but give it later to the little guy who is so upset about their family.'

 

 

They walked back to the Rocket headquarters in silence, Amelie deep in thought. Spark wasn't upset that Amelie had stolen Flashlight after he saw how healthy he was. Spark wasn't upset at their breaking into the lab because they didn't manage to cause any trouble and he didn't want to fight them there… So they didn't hurt the pokemon in the lab?

Was Spark ready to ignore morality as long as pokemon were safe?

Wait, Spark said he took care of Flashlight, but Flashlight was being kept in a specialised lab that didn't let kids help - she knew that, she asked before breaking in. How old was he then? Thirteen? Fourteen?

'Lets see what you have in that bag,' Noire's voice took Amelie out of her reverie. Somewhere along the way Noire had picked Flashlight up and was now carrying him in their arms. It made them look like a sad kid holding a snorlax plushie. Amelie was glad it was nighttime and there was barely anyone to see one of the most dangerous people in the city looking like this. Then again, she knew she was one of maybe four people in the city - and one of two who weren't leaders of enemy team - who could recognise the shade of the vulnerability Amelie saw for the first time that fateful day when she eavesdropped on the conversation between Sabrina and Noire.

'Amelie? Poffins.'

'Yeah, yeah.' Amelie opened the bag and reached inside. When she saw the contents she stopped.

'...Amelie?'

Amelie slowly took out the pastry from the bag and showed it to Noire. It wasn't a poffin; it was a mini cream puff.

'I guess this is for you, boss,' she said indifferently.

Noire stared. They changed their grip on Flashlight, put their hand in the bag and took out another cream puff.

'Wait, who the hell is _little_?' Noire pouted and took an angry bite out of the pastry. 'Damn, Amelie, help yourself, those are delicious!'

Amelie slowly bit into the cream puff. There were unexpected depths to the Instinct leader Amelie wasn't too keen on considering yet she'd probably have to if she wanted to keep Noire alive. Especially that Noire didn't know better than to keep away from Spark.

'Amelie, can Flashlight eat cream puffs?'

'He shouldn't but that never stopped him.' You two are alike in that manner, thought Amelie.

Amelie liked to think that the reason she agreed to Sabrina's proposal was her ambition, or the money or because she didn't really have a choice. It was pretty terrifying how easily Spark saw through the fact that the real reason she did so was because she realised that the rumoured terrifying human weapon was still a human - even if she knew Sabrina let her witness that on purpose. And yet... knowing that there was someone else who cared about Noire was weirdly reassuring.

Even if that someone was an unpredictable overpowered legendary-bonded leader of an enemy team who could kill Noire when provoked.

Which Noire tended to do aplenty.

Well, Amelie thought taking another cream puff out of the bag before Noire managed to snatch them all, that was as much 'reassuring' as you got working with Noire.

**Author's Note:**

> After writing 'Force of Nature' I felt bad for the poor, sick, orphaned vulpix. I wanted something good to happen to him. Then I remembered Amelie had a vulpix in her side story and the problem was solved(?)
> 
> I love Amelie and writing her is really fun. She is just So. Done. With this shit.  
> Surfi kept hinting how Spark is low-key terrifying if you look really close and I wanted to try more of that.
> 
> Mike... is a character I created on the fly because I needed someone to go steal pokemon with child Amelie. Mike used to be in the same class as Amelie but Amelie got into a better school later. Mike joined Team Rocket first but couldn't get promoted above the lowest level grunt while Amelie kept climbing the corporate ladder. Even Mikes' blabbing to HR about the childhood incident didn't harm her reputation, as the vulpix became a really strong pokemon by then.  
> Mike was really, really jealous when Amelie became Executive Assistant. The jealousy lasted until one night Mike saw all the assistants at a bar after one of the leader run-ins. Amelie and Go were taking Carl's advice on dealing with the stress, a.k.a. a whole bottle of scotch, and Annie was instructing them on how to modify pokemon potions so they protect the liver and prevent hangover and alcoholism. After listening to their conversations about the leaders for three hours Mike went home and wrote a petition to HR not to be ever assigned to any mission that had the slightest chance of involving any of the four leaders.  
> He still got send as a secondary support team cleaning up after Noire and applied for a desk job later.


End file.
